“See it — Film it — Change it” is a slogan of Witness, an NGO that has been documenting human rights violations for 20 years. Lawyers working for The New Media Advocacy Project recently presented Congress members with video of sexual violence in Haitian camps and won some assistance to the victims. Ustream, a commercial service for live video streaming, provided a platform to citizen journalists covering Hurricane Sandy. Rich Jones of Openwatch has a vision of smartphones recording the actions of law enforcement to the point cops become truly accountable to the public. And Ken Goldberg’s Rashoman Project offers new technology for recording volatile protest situations.

All of the above was presented and discussed at a forum at the Banatao Auditorium on the University of California, Berkeley campus called “We Witness: A Panel on Digital Video, Social Media, & Political Protest.” It was held on Monday, December 10 by the CITRIS Data and Democracy Initiative in honor of Human Rights Day.